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Report: US and Israel developed Flame

According to a report by the Washington Post, quoting unnamed government sources familiar with the matter, the Flame spyware was a joint development by the United States and Israel. The malware was supposedly developed to spy on Iranian networks in preparation for a "cyber-sabotage" campaign. According to the report, the project involved the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Israeli military.

Flame was allegedly part of the same project as Stuxnet – malware designed to attack the Siemens control systems used in Iranian power plants. Anti-virus vendor Kaspersky had already discovered clues suggesting that Stuxnet and Flame were related. According to the Washington Post's source, a "former high-ranking US intelligence official", Flame and Stuxnet were part of an ongoing "broader assault" on "an adversary of the United States". Representatives of the CIA, NSA, and the Israeli embassy in Washington declined to comment on the paper's report.

Flame was originally discovered in May by anti-virus experts from Kaspersky Lab. The malware is able to tap into the microphone and webcam of an infected computer as well as log keyboard input and take screenshots of the system.